From Psalm 85

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.
Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;
And give heed to the voice of my supplications!
In the day of my trouble I shall call upon You,
For You will answer me.
There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord,
Nor are there any works like Yours.
All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And they shall glorify Your name.
For You are great and do wondrous deeds;
You alone are God.

Jeremiah 17:14-18

Heal me O LORD, and I shall be healed

Save me and I shall be saved

For YOU are my praise

See how they say to me,

"Where is the word of the LORD?

Let it come!"

But I have not run away from being a shepherd in YOUR service,

Nor have I desired the fatal day,

YOU know what came from my lips

It was before YOUR face

Do not become a terror to me,

YOU are my refuge in the day of disaster;

Let my persecutors be shamed

But do not let me be shamed

Let them be dismayed

But do not let me be dismayed...

Friday Finds

This Friday I found a view. A view that I first saw in a photograph hanging in a local art gallery. My photo lacks the dramatic light of an approaching storm, but I love that I found the same spot -- that I saw God's handiwork laid out for myself. (And I sort of also love that I didn't pay $250 for my picture of that spot.)

I also found an overlook where no buildings, no rutted scars, no power lines -- no trace of humans could be seen in the valley below -- unless you went all the way across the narrow ledge and craned your neck and then you could see one little white spot that was probably some one's house, but that really doesn't count.


... found out my friend Heather can tame butterflies. This beauty crawled right up onto her finger and posed for a picture.

... found rhododendron in bloom,

...and rooted in the cleft of the rock.

... and found trees. Old trees forgotten in a ravine and left to grow, their trunks too large to span with our arms, dead and fallen, live and hollow, standing, being, dwarfing us as we hiked the small winding trail.


Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes... ~Psalm 96:12b-13a

Happy Earth Day

You can be sure that I [the LORD] live. You can be sure that my glory fills the whole earth.

~Numbers 14:21

talk gently,

Proverbs 8:5-9, 12-13

O you simple ones, understand prudence,
And you fools, be of an understanding heart.
Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
And from the opening of my lips will come right things;
For my mouth will speak truth;
Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are with righteousness;
Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.
They are all plain to him who understands,
And right to those who find knowledge. ...
“ I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And find out knowledge and discretion.
The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.

awaiting occasions,

Isaiah 25:9

And it shall be said in the day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

worry never...

Matthew 6:25-31

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day brings enough troubles of its own.

Father Abraham

I finally got my computer and phone to talk to each other. Which means, finally, I can post pictures of my Sparkies Stars bulletin board.

The story was Abraham and Isaac -- God's promise of nations and peoples as numerous as the stars, all descended from Abraham. Explaining this concept so five-year-olds could remember it seemed like it might require a game.

The sort of game where they have to guess how many stars there are... there were 96 blue stars, 28 stars that I painted with a special paint so they glow in the dark (they loved that), 154 total 3D stars (there are more stars printed on the fabric background)...
and one Abraham standing on a small green hill in the bottom right corner looking on in amazement.
God took Abraham outside and said "Look up at the sky and count the stars -- if indeed you can count them." Then God said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Genesis 15:5

A Focus Study

"Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it." --GK Chesterton

"Are the comforts of God too small for you, or the word that deals gently with you?" Job 15:11

"Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks." -- Chesterton

"Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him; sing praises to Him; tell of all His wondrous works!" -- 1 Chronicals 16:8-9
"Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified." -- Chesterton

...Shall Set You Free

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." -- John 14:6

Time Passes

First, apologies to loyal readers who have been wondering if I dropped off the face of the earth. I'm still here. Amidst the business that has been August 2010 so far I took some time out to celebrate another birthday. Hooray for time with family! Hooray for chocolate cake!

Not so much hooray for people who say "So. How does it feel? Now that you're almost 40."

I have no problem with being this close to 40. I don't think I'll have a problem when I get this close to 50 or 60 either. (Nearing 120 I might start to wonder what's going on, but that's a topic for a different post.) I like greying hair. I like not being expected to feel spunky after pulling an all-nighter -- I like not being expected to pull all-nighters. I like having a back pocket full of experiences that give me wisdom, help me connect with others, and let me share strength with those who are just now walking through valleys I've already passed through.

What I don't like is the gloating patronizing tone of the people who ask how I feel about getting older. As though I should feel guilty for not remaining young -- and not wanting to.

Being young is great (or was great, depending on your perspective) but so is being older. So is maturity, experience, growth, wisdom... There is grace in aging and beauty in the fading of flowers. The human heart holds more each year, the mind expands, the spirit is honed.

So...
To the woman some 20 years my elder, who commented on my being "over the hill" with a glee that suggested she had found my Achilles heel... the woman who mentioned my age 23 times in a five minute conversation ... and the woman who questioned my mental capacities "now that you're getting so old.": Get over it.

If I have not matured, if I have not learned from these years I have lived, perhaps I should be embarrassed by my age. Thank goodness I'm not ashamed.

If I can not offer more compassion, more basic human respect, and more understanding of others with each passing year perhaps I ought not to claim my true age. Praise God I have no need to lie.

If I didn't think there's so much more to learn and love about the years to come perhaps I could worry about being old. Thank goodness I am spared those worry lines.

If I did not believe in filling each year with a record of obedience to the Lord and service to others, then maybe the piling up of those years would concern me. Praise God for helping me make each new year better than the last.

... because time passes

... the flowers fade

... the sun rises, sets, and hurries to rise again

... the waters travel to the sea

... man is born of a woman, only to return to dust

... the histories and generations come and go

... and time passes

For everything there is a season, there is a time for every matter under heaven...and God seeks out what has gone by. -- Ecclesiastes 3:1, 15b

Friday Photos

"As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more." -- Psalm 103:15-16

Note to Self

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Mockers stir up a city,
but wise men turn away anger.
A fool gives full vent to his anger,
but a wise man keeps himself under control.
An angry man stirs up dissension,
and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.
For as churning the milk produces butter,
and as twisting the nose produces blood,
so stirring up anger produces strife.
Proverbs 15:1; 29:8, 11, 22; 30:33 (HCSB)

A Word Of Edification

He who walks with the wise grows wise,
but a companion of fools suffers harm.
-- Proverbs 13:20 (NIV)

Reaping the Wild Oats

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. --Galatians 6:7-8

Yesterday, in the middle of the pastor's powerpoints about the price of sin, something he said triggered a chain of thoughts I hadn't connected before. I've heard it said many times that we reap what we sow, later than we sow, and more than we sow but yesterday that statement connected with the cliche about sowing wild oats.

We offer excuses for the young, or the old, or ourselves "just sowing a few wild oats" and then they/we will settle down. But the pastor made a very good point: God forgives us our sins but he does not remove the consequences of those sins.

Like a noxious weed seeding itself in our gardens our wild oats have a pernicious way of hanging about and causing trouble long after the deed is done.

The actual Wild Oat plant, Avena fatua (also known as oatgrass -- more info here), produces oat seeds with projections which when moistened (ie by humidity) turn the seed and drill it into the ground to ensure germination. In addition to the hygroscopic awn, wild oat seeds have another feature to ensure continuation. They can go dormant, waiting for better growing conditions before sprouting. One plant can produce 60 to 2,000 new oats.

When we sow one wild oat seed -- the consequences are 60 to 2000 new wild oats infesting our gardens. And, because that is how things work in this world, we often find ourselves dealing with the consequences of other peoples oats. Our wild oat seeds, our sins, will bury themselves in other people's gardens and be reaped not just by ourselves but by those around us as well.

We are forgiven our sins.
We still must endure the earthly consequences.
We sow and we reap the wild oats.

Re-Knit

Remember those super-wash merino hand knit socks I made for my niece? They're her favorite. Sammy-Dog is also quite fond of them and chewed off the entire cuff of one sock. I was called in for repairs.

Fortunately I had extra of the yarn still, and as you can see both socks are whole again. As I was knitting the new cuff onto the damaged sock it occurred to me that we treat our lives like Lily's socks sometimes.

We leave ourselves where the dog can chew great big holes in us and we get damaged. The great thing is that if we go back to God, our Maker, He always has more yarn to fix us. God can knit our lives whole again. All we have to do is ask.

You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. -- Job 10:11-12

Climbing Joseph's Coat

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

-Genesis 37:3

Whatever translations may now say, whether Joseph's coat was long, or had sleeves, or was striped, we have the King James Version to thank for the translation rendering it a coat of many colors. It's alliterative, a phrase that flows off the tongue and triggers the imagination. Dolly Parton wrote a song; Webber and Rice produced a musical; and in 1964 Armstrong and Swim registered the hybridized climbing florabunda rose known as Joseph's Coat. The multi-colored rose begins as a tight pink bud, opens to gold petals rimmed with orange, and changes as it opens to a full-blown deep red.

Spirit Horses

They were gone now. By the time we noticed, only the trammelled lawn bore testimony to the antics of the roaming horses. As we traced the circuitous path of invisible horses, I resisted the urge to joke that we had been visited in the night by one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, probably the one that pours out the diseases... like swine flu.

The neighbors over the hill confirmed, they had seen two skittish yearlings wandering past them later in the morning. You would be surprised at how often things like that happens in my neighborhood. (A quick course on hiring teens who close gates, coupled with a gate-closing training program for teens might fix this but that is beside the point.) These ordinary horses were mere flesh, not spirit horses.

The prophet Isaiah begins chapter 31 crying: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses..." explaining, in verse 3 that the Egyptians are men and not God; their horses are flesh and not spirit.

It's human nature to want to rely on others for help, for advice, and guidance, for protection and wisdom. But why do we trace the circuitous paths, following in the hoof prints of ordinary horses? We have God to rely on, we have the Holy Spirit.

As Christians we sometimes get caught up in following the wisdom of mentors, the guidance of teachers, the powerful directives of influential preachers -- but they are just people. They are flesh and not Spirit, men and not God.

Do we pray, and search the Scriptures, when given advice? Or do we simply trust our friend and say 'that sounds good' relying on our human instincts? Because I'll tell you, hoof prints were not the only signs those loose horses left in our yard. They left us quite a few dollops of fertilizer as well. And human wisdom, even from the most well-meaning, most spiritual person, amounts to a big dollop of horse leavings if that's not what God wanted us to do.

Paul reminds us and the Galatians: "Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" (Galatians 3:3)

We have to decide: Are we God-followers wholly trusting the Spirit, or are we followers of human wisdom and run-away horses?

Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away

You've heard that expression I'm sure, about wild horses. But have you thought about Egyptian horses? Could Egyptian horses drag us away?

Back in the ancient days before the Israelites had even entered the Promised Land, the Lord knew that one day they would want to have a king. In Deuteronomy 17 mention is made of how the King should behave. Verse 16 : The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." He started warning them early.

And yet even King Solomon, for all his wisdom, bought horses from Egypt (this is recorded in 1 Kings 10:28-29, 2 Chronicles 1:16 and 9:28) They're nice horses, good chariots, excellent in battle. Worldly wisdom says there is nothing wrong in buying horses from Egypt. So Solomon bought Egyptian horses.

But God said not to.

You see, Solomon's horses from Egypt led to Solomon's wife from Egypt, the Pharaoh's daughter, and through her (and other foreign wives) Solomon was led away from the Lord. He went "back that way" that God said the Israelites were not to go.

He let himself get dragged away.
And it started with the horses from Egypt.

Egyptian horses were Solomon's "gateway drug" if you will, opening the door to disobeying God in other areas of his life. Today we are no different than Solomon. I'll give you some examples:

God said to dress modestly and with respect. But every Sunday the churches boast barely clad women dressing in the latest fashions from Paris Hilton and Susie Slut... 'Nothing wrong with being fashionable,' says the world. 'Every one else is wearing horses from Egypt. It doesn't mean anything.'

Scripture tells us that as believers we have the power to cast out demons, and that we should rebuke evil. It does not say that we are to spend hours in line at the Walmart to buy the movie Twilight or Harry Potter, inviting evil under our own roof, and then wonder why our children misbehave. They're just riding the Egyptian horses we bought them.

Do I need to mention the number of "good Christian women" reading secular romance novels and watching soaps? Or the number of "Godly men" playing violent video games or surfing the internet while claiming to be working hard for their employer?

Figuratively speaking, we are buying horses from Egypt.

No, the girl dressed like Paris Hilton sitting in the pew next to me does not behave like Paris Hilton. Not yet anyway. And, okay, the children watching Twilight are not turning into demon possessed vampires* but, as the Proverbs tell us "Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it." It's just the first step in the wrong direction, away from God.

Let's not delude ourselves -- when we buy into the ways of the world... when we say 'but they're good horses. There's nothing wrong with this book, this outfit, this game, this movie...' We are making the same mistake Solomon did. We are setting ourselves up to get dragged away from God by wild horses.

As believers we have been saved out of the world, and we "are not to go back that way again."
It's time to muck out the stables.



[*...and there is no such thing as a "good" vampire, so don't even start with me.]

Watered Gardens

Photo: Fountain show at Longwood Gardens

And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

~ISAIAH 58: 11